He delves into Schubert’s and Szymanowski’s variously tortured souls and teases out, with velvety tone and eloquent phrasing, nuances that bring fresh insights and carry us deep below the surface. Risks abound, but they’re in the service of the music’s spirit and they pay off.

Debargue’s wholehearted commitment to the music he plays has never been in question…If there is little in Debargue’s approach to either of the two Schubert sonatas that is recognisably Viennese, they provide the occasion for some effective music-making…Rarely does a major label afford us the opportunity of observing, up close and personal, the gradual maturation of an artist in such minute detail.

The unhurried first movement of D784 carries granitic grandeur; the brief central movement punches well above the weight its duration might imply. Debargue shades melodies exquisitely, while Schubert’s terracing of registers is intelligently delivered. We don’t get ‘music-box’ Schubert in D664; anguish surfaces regularly. This is superb Schubert playing, up there with the likes of Uchida. Inspired coupling, too, for the Szymanowski Sonata. Debargue’s achievement is to project the work’s crepuscular beauty while retaining textural clarity.

The Schubert sonatas receive wistful, measured performances, closer to Sviatoslav Richter’s approach, say, than to Alfred Brendel’s...the first movement [of the Szymanowski] is launched with great determination, and the final fugue dispatched with a real bravura flourish. Not quite the finished article, perhaps, but definitely a pianist to follow.